Prongs saves the day
by Nana Evans
Summary: What if James used his head on that fateful night?


It was getting late, well passed Harry's bedtime, but the little tyke was having so much fun chasing the bubbles that James didn't have the heart to stop. He actually could keep going for a few hours more.

"Come on, James, that's enough."

Apparently, Lily wasn't of the same mind. Oh, well, James thought while putting his wand on the coffee table and scooping up his son from the floor, they could always get back to their game in the morning.

He had just reached the stairs where Lils was not so patiently waiting when they heard the sound of the front door slamming open.

"Lily, it's him! Take Harry and run! I'll hold him off!"

Lilly grabbed Harry and ran up the stairs, probably to get the portkey and escape. He hoped he could buy them enough time, but just as he saw the shadow looming on the hallway he remembered a really crucial detail: his wand was still on the living room. On top of the fricking coffee table!

Despair descend on his mind. He was about to face the most powerful Dark Lord in this generation with his bare hands.

He would laugh if the situation wasn't so dire. Padds would laugh too, but he wouldn't be there to hear because he was stupid enough to leave his wand behind and now he was going to die, and then snake face would go up and kill his family, but he couldn't let that happen, Lily would kill him if Harry died, he had to defend his family and, Merlin's balls, he would do it!

Voldemort entered the short hallway and James stopped thinking. He just let instinct take over, all his being focused only on defending his loved ones from the threat right in front of him.

This was far easier than he thought it would be, Voldemort thought while glancing around the house and spying an abandoned wand on the coffee table. Bumbling fools, the lot of them! He might even have time to drop by to get rid of the Longbottom brat after all. It would be nice to be done with this foolishness sooner rather than later.

He was just turning into the hallway when a rather unexpected sound reached his ears. Were those _hooves_?

He was in the middle of pointing his wand in front of him when the reality of a massive stag with pointy antlers coming at him at full gallop finally downed on him. Unfortunately for the Dark Lord, that realisation came a little too late and the next -and last- thing he was aware of was the pointy antlers piercing his brain through his eye socket.

Lily was terrified. She couldn't apparate, couldn't portkey out, and all the house brooms were in the broom closet downstairs. Her last hope was to get Voldemort to kill her first to power the ritual she had researched in a last ditched effort to protect Harry.

He would be coming any moment now and she was already mourning James and steeling herself for what she would have to do.

She waited. And waited a little more.

A good fifteen minutes must have passed and despite there being noise from downstairs, it didn't sound like spell fire. It sounded like… _hooves._

Lily couldn't stay put anymore. She might have been the smartest witch of her age, but she was also a Griffindor and that meant that at least a part of her was _bravely stupid._

She descend the stairs to encounter the most ridiculous, gruesome and mentally scaring image she would ever see in her life.

Taking up most of the cramped space, with antlers stuck to the wall at the end of the hallway, a bloddy pale body impaled from one of them, was James. To be more precise, Prongs.

It took ten more minutes, even with Lily's help, to pull himself free of the wall and finally dislodge Voldy's corpse from himself. He would need a hundred showers to feel clean of all the blood again, minimum.

"I still can't believe you killed him _like that_"

James shrugged, scratched the back of his neck and promptly regretted that decision when he felt his neck sticky with blood. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"What are we gonna _tell _people? You're unregistered, we can't say you transformed into a stag and _impaled _Voldemort to death!"

"I'll think of something." He saw the incredulous look on his wife's face and sighed. Oh ye of little faith. "Lils, I've been talking around McGonagall since I was eleven, I can totally bullshit my way around the aurors." He looked at himself, still drenched in dark lord's blood. "_After_ a shower, of course."

Lily threw her hands up and shooed him towards the bathroom before she started scourgefing the wall. Hum. Might as well resign to the madnnes, he guessed.

"Let me see if I got this straight. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named invaded your house, you decided to face him, but you forgot your wand and then a _deer_, of all things, appeared and skewered him to the wall. That's what you going with."

"Of course, not, Moody my chap! It was a _stag _not a _deer_. Make sure you get that right on the report."

"Oh, yes, that makes perfect sense, now. A _stag._ And what was it doing here? Where did it come from?"

"I don't have the foggiest idea! There I was, minding my own business, preparing to meet my maker, when all of a sudden this massive, majestic stag comes charging in and impales the Dark Lord! That was quite a sight, let me tell you."

"Magestic, you say?"

"Yes! A truly magnificent beast, a perfect example of the species!"

"And where did it go?"

"Now that, my friend, I don't know."

Moody had heard all kinds of bullshit explanations during his career, but this one… This one was something else. But, damn it, what could he do? An ex-auror calls in a breaking and entering gone bad and the victim is a known terrorist that's been making everyone's life a living hell _and _is wanted dead or alive. Well, he was here, he was dead, and if Potter didn't want to take credit, what could he do?

7 years later

"... That, son, is why we dress up as stags on Halloween!"

Eight year old Harry Potter was not impressed. We wanted to dress up as Death from the Tale of Three Brothers, but nooooo. He had to be a stupid stag _again._

"I still don't understand where did it go after."

"Disappeared into the ether to wait being called into action again. Now, come on, Harry! There are treats to be had and tricks to dispense!"

James looked at his son's sour face while he put on his fantasy, spied his wife and young daughter also wearing the same outfit and manfully resisted the urge to laugh.

The Dark Lord was gone, his family was safe, he was still miraculously alive and at least half the wizarding world was dressed up like a stag tonight.

_Best prank __**ever**__!_

_Author notes: This was inspired by a Tumblr post I saw this week and just couldn't get out of my head. It wasn't betaed, so I'm sorry by any typos. Hope you've enjoyed it_


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